How to Avoid Over-Filtering Good Candidates

This article is part of the Potential and Expandable Matching guide.

Over-filtering happens when recruitment criteria are applied too rigidly, excluding candidates who could do the job well and whose gaps are either immaterial or addressable. In a well-supplied market, over-filtering has limited consequences. In a skills-short market, it can mean missing your best available candidates entirely.

Common over-filtering patterns

Mandatory qualifications that are not truly mandatory — a qualification has been on the job description for years, but nobody has checked recently whether it is genuinely required or could be gained after hire.

Experience thresholds set too high — "minimum 5 years" when 3 years of the right experience would be sufficient.

Salary filter set below realistic expectations — ruling out candidates whose salary expectation is slightly above the band, rather than having a conversation about flexibility.

Location radius set too tightly — excluding candidates who are willing to travel the required distance but whose home postcode falls outside an arbitrary radius.

How to recalibrate

Review your filtering criteria against these questions:

• Is this criterion genuinely necessary for the candidate to do the job?
• If not, could it be met through training, development or a reasonable period of adjustment?
• Is this criterion excluding a meaningful proportion of otherwise strong candidates?
• When did we last review whether this criterion reflects current market reality?

Optio’s tiered matching approach is designed to surface the candidates who would otherwise be filtered out — giving employers the information to make conscious decisions rather than automated exclusions.

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